Andre’s Cucina and Polenta Bar

date of visit: Friday 6 May 2011

It might seem odd for a food blogger, but I have very little interest in Masterchef Australia. I loved the original UK version: the shouting, the food, and of course, Gregg Wallace and John Torode. But I find the Australian offering too personality focussed – it feels like a popularity contest while being unbelievably condescending to both participants and viewers.

However, Adelaide is home to Andre Ursini, former Masterchef contestant and now chef proprietor of Andre’s Cucina and Polenta Bar on Frome Street. And I guess that Masterchef was the catalyst for the restaurant so things aren’t all bad.

We first ate at Andre’s late last year and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. While I love Italian food and would happily eat spaghetti, chilli, oil and garlic every day of the year Andy is a little more picky and prefers Italian that goes beyond the tedium of bad spaghetti carbonara … oh, wait, that applies to me too! Andre’s suits us perfectly because it serves up interesting Italian food – something all too rare in a city awash with casual Italian restaurants.

The main food feature of the restaurant is the polenta. This is proper, soft, slow cooked polenta – nothing like the instant polenta the average punter (me, at least) cooks at home. There are a few staples on the menu as well as a special. The way the menu works is a bit different as the printed menu contains entrées and polenta staples, while the main courses are listed as specials on a chalk board. For a main course, you order a polenta dish and then one or two additional mains (assuming two people). This is not a place to go with people who are fussy eaters who won’t want to share. The whole premise of the restaurant is based around sharing.

Both times we’ve visited we’ve started with bagna cauda: the garlicky, oily, hot anchovy dip served with plenty of crudités. This is perfectly porportioned for two – and it’s very beautiful. On Friday night the dip came in a tiny copper saucepan, perched on the edge of a board decorated with the vegetables.

For mains we ordered two specials: polenta with duck ragu and Suffolk lamb cutlets with peas and Gorgonzola. Lamb is outrageously expensive in Australia at the moment (a few weeks back I asked the butcher for lamb backstrap which came in at $50-55 a kilo!) so the lamb option was not the cheapest choice but it was delicious. The gorgonzola sauce was set off by finely sliced (and hot!) chillis which was excellent and certainly something I’ll keep in mind. The polenta was also lovely: sloppy, soupy, with the duck ragu stirred through it. To be honest, I’d be perfectly happy to eat just that and not bother with anything else.

We were going to wrap up with just coffees but a last minute decision saw us order the mokacino panettone with vanilla icecream and chocolate ganache. Thank goodness we decided to share because it was a massive wedge of panettone. As with everything else – it was delicious. The cake was laced with some sort of chocolatey or mocha like cream, the icecream was sprinkled with pistachio nuts and there was just enough chocolate ganache.

Our final bill was $123 which included the food, a glass of wine, a few Morettis and a couple of coffees. Perhaps not the cheapest Italian but definitely one of the cheaper good Italian options.

The food at Andre’s is beautifully presented and perfectly proportioned. It’s also incredibly tasty. The one drawback is that the restaurant is busy and, consequently, quite crowded and noisy – but neither the food nor the affable, efficient service appears to suffer. On a Friday or Saturday night you definitely need to book.

Andre’s Cucina & Polenta Bar
94 Frome Street
Adelaide SA 5000
phone : 08 8224 0004

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Risotto all’Isolana

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Risotto doesn’t happen nearly often enough in our household.  I don’t know why – maybe it’s the fact that it does take a bit of effort in the stirring, or that we never have quite the right things to go in it. And you know what, it also doesn’t photograph very well!

I was flicking through some cookbooks over the weekend looking for menu inspiration when I spotted risotto all’isolana in Antonio Carluccio’s Complete Italian Food*. As this is a risotto with meat in it it won instant approval from Andy.

Carluccio specifies luganiga sausage (which you peel and then crumble the sausage filling) which wasn’t immediately to hand. However, I saw no reason to be put off. After all, sausage is just pork and some flavourings – so as a substitute I used pork mince and … um, some flavourings.

The following made enough for two people for dinner, with seconds.

Begin by dicing an onion and gently frying it off in some olive oil and unsalted butter. Add a finely chopped clove of garlic and 150gm of pork mince. Keep the temperature reasonably high so that the pork doesn’t end up stewing. To fake luganiga I used some oregano, cinnamon, allspice and ground coriander. The cinnamon, allspice and coriander were all about ¼ tsp, and there was slightly more oregano. As always, there’s no substitute for tasting as you go.

Once happy with the pork and onion mix, add 200g of risotto rice (I used Arborio) and when the rice is well coated in the oil/onion/pork mix and starts to go transparent start adding hot stock. I heated up about 500mL and used all of that plus some extra hot water. Add the stock a ladleful at a time, stirring between additions and ensuring the stock is all absorbed before adding more.

Keep adding stock and stirring until the rice is cooked and the risotto is at the consistency you like. Finish the risotto by stirring through another 50g (or so) of unsalted butter and plenty of grated parmesan.

Serve at once.

It’s not the prettiest dish you’ll ever make but it’s proper winter comfort food: hot, simple and filling.

* Also available from Amazon US, Amazon UK or internationally through The Book Depository.

Pasta Presto

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We eat pasta at least once a week and, often, it is an emergency meal.  We get home late from something and throw some frozen filled pasta in boiling water and mix through some bought pesto.  Proper lazy food.

But then there are occasions (all the time, really) where there is no excuse for such laziness.  As Susan, at the Well Seasoned Cook, is hosting Pasta Presto Nights this week I took this as an opportunity to NOT crack open a jar but instead use up what was in the fridge.

Fortunately, the fridge was well stocked for pasta making.  We had half a jar of passata – absolutely essential for a fast pasta sauce, as well as half a small pot of tomato paste.  An excellent start.

If you’re using dried pasta, start cooking it before you start on the sauce.

I started by heating some olive oil in a pan, and crisping up a couple of rashers of bacon, chopped up.  Then I added a roughly chopped leek and 3 minced cloves (large!) of garlic.  Once the leek had softened, in went the passata, and I rinsed out the jar with some of the red wine that was open.  Then I mixed through the tomato paste, and added a teaspoon of oregano and a tiny scotch bonnet chilli (the first of what is looking like a very large harvest), very finely chopped.

And I just let that all very gently simmer while the pasta cooked.  Shortly before the pasta was ready I stirred through the remnants of some mascarpone (probably about 75g worth).

Mix the pasta through the sauce, and serve, topped with plenty of parmesan and black pepper.

From start to finish, this took less than half an hour (in fact, the sauce was finished before the pasta had finished cooking) and it was absolutely delicious.  The tiny chilli added a lovely background heat that built up as we ate and the mascarpone and tomato paste both enriched the sauce and made it fabulously creamy.

The only problem?  We don’t always have a fridge so conveniently stocked for pasta sauce making!